Seriously, because it can and due to a difference in traditions. In the US, all services own and control most of their own aircraft. Think of it as a Federal system as opposed to a centralized state. It is mildly inefficient, it is not at all ineffective.

I still wish the Air Farce would have given the A10 to the Marines. It is still the finest CAS fixed wing air craft available IMHO.

There most assuredly are better acquisition and weapons requirements strategies than what we're doing now.

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Sam LilesSelil BlogDon't forget to duck Secret SquirrelThe scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives. All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.

I still wish the Air Farce would have given the A10 to the Marines. It is still the finest CAS fixed wing air craft available IMHO.

True dat...

Quote:

This blog post got a bunch of hits from the NCR http://selil.com/archives/2689. . .There most assuredly are better acquisition and weapons requirements strategies than what we're doing now.

True dat as well -- that's a good Post at the link! Works for me...

At the risk of being the resident curmudgeonly cynic, I have to warn you: I think the NCR visitors to the Post may be Congressional Staffers drawn to see such money saving and common sense heresy and who are likely determined to stop you before you annoy the Major Defense Contractors and affect jobs in their Bosses districts...

Though hopefully, the visitors would be folks who see the wisdom of the idea and push it into adoption...

Added by Moderator at author's request (3hrs ago):The update of DID's report on the CH-53K was released in public domain. That was later changed to subscriber only. Advice from DID is that there was some technical problem, also that the update will not be re-released as public.

In my opinion Israeli procurement of the precariously arranged V-22 Osprey is foolish. However, Israel receives about $US2 billion in military assistance from the USA each year. So the V-22s will come cheap although operating them is likely to prove costly.

Any force that paid real dollars for V-22s would seem doubly foolish, or simply stupid.

The twin tilt-props of the V-22B Osprey are prone to excess disc loading and instability during rapid transition and vertical descent. Hence the slower short-range lower-flying UH-1Y Venom utility helicopter - supported by the AH-1Z Viper attack variant - is the preferred transport for air landing and recovery of lightweight USMC elements in contested situations. However USMC planners have proposed two promising new roles for its fleet of MV-22B aircraft.

Currently the F-35B Short Takeoff and Landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter is being worked up from interim to full operational capability from the same amphibious support ships which carry the MV-22B. But those ships lack both catapult and arrester gear. Without such gear - and preferably also an angled deck - the ships cannot be employed to launch and recover conventional fixed-wing aircraft heavily laden with air-to-air refueling kit and transfer fuel, nor the E-2 Hawkeye aircraft configured with an airborne early warning and control system. Consequently for those types of widely used support the USMC is still reliant on large CATOBAR aircraft carriers.

That reliance could be reduced by development of appropriate variants of the MV-22B. Proposals for such variants were reported during 2015 but there has not been any widespread news in 2016. Time will reveal if part of the MV-22B fleet can be productively employed in those less stressful support roles without displacing too many other aircraft. Time will also reveal if the capabilities of F-35B degraded to reduce weight and enable vertical landing are adequate for strike, close air support, and air combat.

Better late than never but operation of the F-35B will still be handicapped by reliance on AWACS flown from USN CATOBAR carriers. Without AAR and AWACS aircraft on the same amphibious warfare ship the utility of the F-35B (and similarly of the JSF program) is less than dubious.

It could seem strange that the Royal Navy and USMC are planning early combined deployment of the short takeoff vertical landing F-35B as the only type of fighter to be carried on the 70,000 tonne HMS Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier. https://news.usni.org/2015/09/17/dse...abeth-carriers

The QE-class was specifically designed to operate up to 40 F-35B STOVL fighters together with non-catapult support aircraft. Hence it was optionally decided the ships scheduled for commissioning in 2018 and 2020 would be built with a bow ski-ramp similar to that developed for the Sea Harrier/AV-8 VSTOL fighter, and without launch and recovery facilities for operation of CATOBAR aircraft. That has caused the QE-class to be sometimes described as supersize Landing Platforms Helicopter. However, due to delays in the Joint Strike Fighter program the RAF/RN will not now receive their yet-to-be confirmed total of 138 or 148 F-35B fighters until well into the 2020s. So apparently the USMC as the principal operator of the F-35B may for several years be making up some or all of one particular shortfall that would affect the RN.

The USMC will anyway be interested in gaining first hand knowledge of how well the reduced weight undercarriage of the F-35B variant of the JSF withstands the stresses inherent in a short takeoff that includes transition to a ski-ramp. The USMC will also want to know if the gentle slope of the ski-ramp on the QE-class - which occupies about half the beam and 70 metres of port-side forward deckspace - enables short takeoff at a heavier weight than permissable from the flat deck of a typical USN amphibious warfare vessel.